Junior College

National Book Award finalist Gary Soto presents a collection of forty new poems that will bring a wry smile of recognition to anyone who endured the angst, anxiety, and misguided realities of childhood and adolescence. Here are poems about the mixed joys of owning a dog who is so obviously inferior to all others in the neighborhood; about the blessings of knowing Italian (thus becoming closer to the Pope and, hence, salvation); and about Soto's years attending junior college during the early '70s in search of truth (wisdom not being possible). The work of America's foremost Chicano poet resonates with the comic and the deadpan, and with a rare understanding that transcends the ordinary while remaining true to the heart.